{"id":77122,"date":"2013-05-01T08:21:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T12:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=77122"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:13:01","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:13:01","slug":"class-of-2013-kyle-hope-and-brian-osborn-future-international-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/05\/class-of-2013-kyle-hope-and-brian-osborn-future-international-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2013: Kyle Hope and Brian Osborn, Future International Engineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of a series featuring some of this year\u2019s outstanding graduating students, nominated by their academic school or college or another University program in which they participated. Check for additional profiles of students in the Class of 2013<\/a> on UConn Today from now through Commencement.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/a>
Brian Osborn ’13 (ENG & CLAS). (Ariel Dowski ’14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Kyle<\/a>
Kyle Hope ’13 (ENG & CLAS). (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In August 2011, while most of their UConn friends were wrapping up their summer internships, Brian Osborn and Kyle Hope were just getting started, as they flew thousands of miles for the opportunity to study and do an internship in Germany for a year.<\/p>\n

Osborn and Hope are both seniors in UConn\u2019s Eurotech program, the five-year track offered by UConn that enables students to spend a year in Germany, including a semester of study and a six-month internship. Students graduating from the Eurotech program earn a dual degree in German and engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people ask me if it was worth it to stay another year at UConn,\u201d says Osborn, a biomedical engineering major. \u201cProfessionally, I think studying abroad has enhanced my job prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osborn interned at the Laboratory for Biomechanics and Implant Research in the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg, developing a process that could be used to study the effects of oxidation on knee implants. Specifically, he researched how natural bodily processes affect the erosion of polyethylene used in the knee implants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking at the effects of bodily acids on polyethylene,\u201d he says. \u201cI also looked at how natural fatty acids produced by the body effected oxidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only was he able to jumpstart a new research project, Osborn also helped German graduate students translate their papers into English so they could share their research findings with scholarly journals in the U.S. and around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially with engineering, there are a lot of companies that work between Germany and the United States,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s always a valuable skill to have to know a second language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope, a chemical engineer, agrees that knowing a second language can be very useful in a world that depends on international industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like learning a new language because you also learn a new culture,\u201d he says. \u201cAlso, I think it\u2019s always valuable to know a second language, because the world\u2019s becoming smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope interned with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. His project focused on high-efficiency solar energy panels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was researching why the adhesive between the glass and the solar side was degrading,\u201d he says. \u201cI was able to find some new behavior they had never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to their internships, both Osborn, at Heidelberg University, and Hope, at Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, took a month-long intensive German language course and other courses that immersed them in German history and culture.<\/p>\n

Osborn really enjoyed learning about political discourse in Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a German political science class,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was interesting to learn about all the different political parties and all of the current debates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope is involved in a video project for the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship that he received last year for Eurotech. He says the video will feature his experiences in Germany and aim to recruit more current and incoming freshman engineering students to join Eurotech.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that learning German is a nice break from engineering,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it\u2019s really important to know how to be open to other cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduation, both Hope and Osborn plan to work at engineering companies in the U.S., but would be eager to take jobs that involve international travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been to a couple job interviews for after graduation,\u201d says Osborn, \u201cand the first thing they say is \u2018Wow, you worked in Germany for a year!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Hope ’13 (ENG & CLAS) and Brian Osborn ’13 (ENG & CLAS) spent a year studying and working in Germany as part of UConn’s Eurotech program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":77046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-77122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 03:34:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77122"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200721,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77122\/revisions\/200721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/77046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77122"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=77122"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=77122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}